About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks

 

Today's nonfiction post is on About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks by David Rooney. It is 271 pages long and is published by W.W. Norton and Company. The cover is series of different clocks. The intended reader is someone who is interested in the history of clocks and the influence that they have had on the world. There is no foul language, no sex or sexuality, and no violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- For thousands of years, people of all cultures have made and used clocks: city sundials in ancient Rome, medieval water clocks in imperial China, hourglasses fomenting revolution in the Middle Ages, the Stock exchange clock of Amsterdam in 1611, the Enlightenment observatories in India, high-precision clocks circling the Earth on a fleet of GPS satellites that have been launched since 1978. Clocks have helped us navigate the world and builds empires, and have even taken us to the brink of destruction. Elites have used them to wield power, make money, govern citizens, and control lives- and sometimes the people have used them to fight back.
Through the stories of twelve clocks, About Time bring pivotal moments from the past vividly to life. Historian and lifelong clock enthusiast David Rooney takes us from the unveiling of al-Jazari's castle clock in 120+, in present-day Turkey; to to the Cape of Good Hope observatory at the southern tip of Africa, where nineteenth-century British government astronomers moved the gears of empire with a time ball and a gun; to a burial of a plutonium clock now sealed beneath a public park in Osaka, where it will keep time for 5,000 years.

Review- An interesting way to see world history. Rooney takes the reader from the Roman Empire to the Atomic Age all through the lens of clocks and how humans interact with them and it was very fascinating read. The research is good, the notes are good for future reading, and the writing style is clear. It did drag in some places with lots of information and details at times being overwhelming but I was invested enough in the over all narrative ideal of clocks and humans making time and history have meaning. If you are interesting in the subject of clocks and history then you should read this book. 

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.